Chamber of Commerce: “America’s Byzantine tax code”

posted at 6:56 pm on June 13, 2012 by Erika Johnsen

A competitive business environment is just as essential to innovation as well-functioning markets. In the enterprise states study, we have fresh evidence of how states are fostering economic growth and jobs through their innovation. What do successful states have in common? A tax and regulatory climate that allows companies to continuously innovate, unshackled by needless delays and burdensome costs. And states that maintain a good legal reform environment can also expect hundreds of millions of dollars or more in economic activity & tens of thousands of new jobs according to our study. The right policies also attract manufacturers. Innovation gravitates toward manufacturing centers and manufacturers are some of the strongest drivers of new innovation.

But when the federal government and their tax and regulatory policies are excessive, it breeds uncertainty, slows investment, depresses new technology, drives manufacturing overseas, and puts business at a competitive disadvantage. Take taxes — you take them and you keep them — but take taxes, for example. No one would hold up America’s Byzantine tax code as a model of efficiency or clarity or an engine of economic growth. Our tax code must be restructured so that it is simple and clear, so that it spurs growth, encourages investment and efficiently generates revenues to reduce the deficit and meet our national priorities. We must enact comprehensive tax reform that broadens the base, lowers all business rates, and reduces the burdens of compliance. This reform should reduce the corporate tax rate — the highest in the world — and drive innovation by permanently extending the R&D tax credit.

We must also do away with specific tax provisions that target innovators. Like the thing that’s on the table right now: the $20 bil tax on medical devices that will take effect next year under Obamacare. This excise tax would squelch innovation in medical technology industry, and that is just so vital to all of these new developments that are keeping us alive so long and so healthily. And, by the way, it would threaten 43,000 industry jobs that would disadvantage you as business and drive some companies and their jobs overseas.

If you can’t do it here, you’re gonna do it somewhere else.

That was Thomas Donohue, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, speaking at their Jobs summit on Wednesday. I have nothing to add. The gentleman pretty much nailed it on the head. Here’s more on the enterprise states study to which he refers.

The Economist had an interesting piece the other day, positing the question: Why aren’t we doing more to attract foreign entrepreneurs to our shores and offering more visas to potential immigrants with new ideas? But here’s another question: Do that many entrepreneurs really even want to come here and deal with our harsh regulatory climate and “Byzantine” tax code?

The Economist had an interesting piece the other day, positing the question: Why aren’t we doing more to attract foreign entrepreneurs to our shores and offering more visas to potential immigrants with new ideas? But here’s another question: Do that many entrepreneurs really even want to come here and deal with our harsh regulatory climate and “Byzantine” tax code?

Here’s an even better question;
Why aren’t we removing the regulatory and tax roadblocks that are stifling our own citizens’ entrepreneurship, innovation, and expansion?

tax code…I made a lot of money in corporate america trying to comply…that might be why nobody wants it simplifed (software companies, accountants, lawyers and publishing companies). On the latter, we had a library 40′ long full of books…I worked with a Dutch guy once that showed me the Dutch tax code…maybe 100 pages…

The Economist had an interesting piece the other day, positing the question: Why aren’t we doing more to attract foreign entrepreneurs to our shores and offering more visas to potential immigrants with new ideas?

Are these elitists really that stupid ?
Don’t they see a giant surge in the number of muslims from 3rd world, everywhere in this country ? What more do we have to do ?

To paraphrase…you have to read it to know what’s in it…and since no one has actually read the whole tax code, how can anyone comment on it…why I think something that is incomprehensible and massive, is exactly the design that politicians want.

I or my businesses have been audited several times…and each time the IRS auditor had no clue except for the basic rules, basic deductions…they are as confounded as the rest of us.

Laughable. The C-o-C and its members have lobbied Congress for favorable, targeted tax breaks for years. They have played a large role in helping the tax code reach its “Byzantine” status.

Lawdawg86 on June 13, 2012 at 7:01 PM

Why would you say they’ve played a large role in making the tax code byzantine? They’ve lobbied because it is byzantine. Congress makes the laws and corporations and organizations lobby. Are you saying that we should not allow the COC’s right to be heard? They represent small businesses for the most part.

Yeah, you read that right. Tax credits for wind turbines… from the group that supposedly abhors a “Byzantine” tax code. I’m certainly not saying that the C-o-C doesn’t have a right to be heard, and I do think they are, generally speaking, one of the better special interest groups on tax issues. But the C-o-C is not exactly the Club for Growth either.

Everyone complains about it but no one ever does anything about it. No matter who wins in November, the tax system will remain the destructive nightmare that it is. At best, a few changes will be made to benefit large corporations – which is fine as far as boosting economic activity – but the rest of us are permanently hosed.

Laughable. The C-o-C and its members have lobbied Congress for favorable, targeted tax breaks for years. They have played a large role in helping the tax code reach its “Byzantine” status. – Lawdawg86 on June 13, 2012 at 7:01 PM

Exactly. And now it’s so bad they are crying for mercy. How about a small tax on gross receipts? – aniptofar on June 13, 2012 at 8:26 PM

The Chamber of Commerce did not create the tax code, but have had to play ball with the idiots that did create it. I am a retired CPA. The number of various forms and regulations that a business has to fill-in and file in order to operate and compile with are astounding. Businesses don’t get to vote and if they did they would be in the minority, so they get soaked when it comes to paying taxes

Erika – Went to a symposium put on by the US Commercial Service, of which the NUMBER ONE COMPLAINT about US firms bidding on foreign jobs is that US are disadvantaged before they even get out of the gate. Why? We (people working the job) are taxed on foreign earned income where a German or Chinese firm doesn’t have to pay extra $ to cover the tax load on the citizenry.

Plain clustf(*k if you ask me. Make our system a FAIR TAX and all of that crap blows away because it’s on it being spent, not earned.